Jay Gruden tells his players to avoid a Sean Lee situation

When Dallas linebacker Sean Lee was lost to a torn ACL in what was supposed to be a non-contact Organized Team Activity, it was noticed by a division rival.

Washington coach Jay Gruden used the Lee injury in stressing to his players that they need to be careful.

“The approach in OTAs has been pretty standardized by the NFL as far as the Collective Bargaining Agreement with no contact. But sometimes when you have 11-on-11 drills, people get tangled up and it’s unfortunate for Sean,” Gruden said, via the Washington Post. “We brought that up to our team again this morning about staying on your feet, doing the best you can to avoid any kind of drag downs, pull downs, contact. But every now and then you are going to have a collision, unfortunately, because it is football and guys are trying to show that they are doing right, but we are trying our best to police that and keep people up. It is something [where] we are definitely keeping an eye on them and making sure we preach every day about staying up.”

There was a time when old-school football coaches believed that contact practices were the only way to prepare their teams to play, but those times are long in the past. Coaches now recognize that keeping players healthy is the top priority in the offseason, and no coach wants to see what happened to Sean Lee happen to another player.

Its nice to see that even head coaches can show there extreme ignorance of a situation. Only people that haven’t seen what actually happen to Lee would make comments like Gruden. If I where a Skins fan I’d be worried that my head coach doesn’t seem to know much about football.

thraiderskin says:May 30, 2014 10:14 AM

Its a good point to make… Lee is a big loss to Dallas’ team and helps to drive home the consequences of to much contact at OTAs.

josiewhales says:May 30, 2014 10:17 AM

Being a Bengals fan and seeing every one of their games, I saw in Jay Gruden incompetence as an OC time after time. How about this,…with the great arsenal the Bengals provided him , they scored but ONE freaking TD in 3 play-off games, all 3 were losses. 2 games were zero TDs offensively.
Would you want this OC imposter for your coach of anything ? I’m glad to see him gone and I truly believe the Bengals will see an improved offense under Hue Jackson, or any half decent OC.

What is it these days with all the ACL tears? I’ve been watching football for 40 years now and I don’t remember there ever being as many ACL injuries as there’s been in the last 5 or so years. Could it be that we just didn’t hear about them as much back in the day? Maybe in the past we only heard about it if it was a star player. Now, with the 24/7 sports news, ANY player that gets injured is reported on. Another possible reason I think about is the non contact practices. I’ve heard of many players saying that they feel they’re more prone to injury if they’re not going all out, 100%. I don’t know. I’d really like to see some data or studies that show IF there’s been an increase in injuries in the last 5 or so years and, if there has been, WHY? Anybody have any ideas?

Folks using this to blast Gruden……ok. We’ve seen the video. Intentional or not, it happened to a guy who gets hurt a lot. But it is an opportunity for all coaches to stress being mindful of throwing themselves around, especially early in OTAs when their bodies are getting used to that routine again.

Just because Lee went down a split second before Martin came in on him, doesn’t mean nothing can be learned from it.

The best franchise in sports history is all class. There isn’t a better coach in sports today than Jay Gruden. Everyone wants to be part of the Redskins orrganization because it watches out for all. HTTR.

Stop wearing cleats during ota’s, straight on stops only.
It’s the angles that kill ‘ya, planting your feet, cutting to make a tackle during ota’s isn’t necessary.
First contact should be enough to call play Dead.
Side to side knee pressure is hard to avoid but proper stretching, no cleats & front side “tackles” can help reduce injury.

Being a Bengals fan and seeing every one of their games, I saw in Jay Gruden incompetence as an OC time after time. How about this,…with the great arsenal the Bengals provided him , they scored but ONE freaking TD in 3 play-off games, all 3 were losses. 2 games were zero TDs offensively.
Would you want this OC imposter for your coach of anything ? I’m glad to see him gone and I truly believe the Bengals will see an improved offense under Hue Jackson, or any half decent OC.

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Ok, tell us how you really feel about Gruden…I don’t know the guy, but it’s quite refreshing to have a younger forward thinking offensive mind to mold a QB that has more talent in his little pinky, than having to get the most out of a very average QB, which from my point of view seems like he did a pretty good job. Your loses were a result of your QB, not the coach. All he can do is call the plays, but your QB has to execute them.